Almost Halfway!

Location: Campbellsville, KY (High 58, Low 44)

Well, another week is now behind us, and we are almost to the halfway point! It was another good week – busy! There were at least two days when VTO was offered, maybe three – the days kind of run together after awhile and neither of us can remember for sure. We stayed each day, and for the most part enough people left that there was enough work for those of us who elected to stick around. From what we are told, this is pretty normal for this time of year. They have to ramp up the number of employees in order to allow for time for training to take place. But the work levels haven’t picked up yet, so that is why they offer the voluntary time off.

On Monday morning there was a meeting of employees, and they went over the numbers and described a bit of what we can expect to encounter once peak season really hits. It sounds like we will probably have a month of overtime weeks, both 50 and 60 hour weeks, maybe two of each. So we are going to be extremely busy from mid-November through mid-December. By that time we are just going to have tunnel vision, with our sights focused on the end! Don’t get me wrong, we feel pretty good about the jobs we are doing, and our fitness level to accomplish them. But those are going to be long and tiring weeks.

Our campground has been filling up. We had four rigs come in last week – and we finally have next door neighbors – Phil and Rudee! We haven’t had too much time to do other than say hello and a few words to them. We were working when they came in, and now we are off and they are getting started. They are on the night shift, so they actually headed out about an hour ago for their first evening of training.

The weather has been crazy! Just our luck that our first year here they get temperatures that are 20 degrees below normal. The lows over the next few nights are supposed to be in the high 20s and low 30s. At least with our month in Catskill last December and January, we know that our rig can easily handle those temperatures. The nice thing is that the 50s and 60s are supposed to come back next week, and that does not normally happen up in NY. Once it gets cold, it stays cold. So there is still hope for some nice weather this fall.

Tomorrow is another payday – yay! Definitely enjoying those.

Seven weeks down – eight to go!